


His Price Is Her

by applejackcat



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:51:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applejackcat/pseuds/applejackcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Storybrooke never sleeps easily on All Hallows Eve, for that is the night the Dark One comes to collect his debt. Belle French is not as unwilling a participant as it might seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Price Is Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotus0kid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotus0kid/gifts).



Archie and Graham, bless them both, linger in the non-fiction stacks of Storybrooke’s library until Belle’s dark looks send them fleeing back to their wives at half past five. Archie kisses her cheek before rushing home to Ruby, and Graham pats her shoulder as he passes her, on his way to the station to join Emma. Storybrooke never sleeps peacefully on All Hallows Eve, and though Belle knows she will not call upon her friends during the night ahead, their silent support of her means everything.

At five-fifty, she sees solid, stocky Leroy making his way down Main Street, obviously headed for the library. He wears an expression like thunder across his bearded face, and Belle knows he came as late as he did because he thinks she will have less time to make him leave. She could block his entrance to the library, but it goes against everything in Belle’s nature to prevent someone’s access to books. So she greets him with a smile and welcomes him into the building.

“You know I close early tonight, right, Leroy?” she asks, knowing that no matter how casually she behaves, Leroy will find a way to pick a fight with her.

“We want to help you, sister,” Leroy proclaims, crossing his thick arms and glaring at a spot above Belle’s left ear. “Why won’t you let us help you?”

He means well. Belle knows he cares for her, as much as he cares for anyone besides Astrid or his brothers. But the clock’s hands hover dangerously close to six-o-clock, and she has such a long evening ahead of her, and she wishes he would leave.  

“Magic comes with a price,” she reminds him, “and I’m that price. We cannot violate the terms of the deal we struck. God knows what would happen if he arrived, and people besides me were here.”

Leroy rumbles dangerously. “That bastard would tear this town apart, wouldn’t he?”

Belle takes his arm and ushers him back outside. “Magic would tear the town apart. Once he’s cast it, wrestled it into its places, rules are the only thing that keeps it bound. If we began to find loopholes in the deal, then so would the magic.”

Leroy stands in the fading sunlight and the autumn evening chill and looks very much like a man who would rather go looking for a fight than his wife. “I’m sorry, Belle, by what we asked of you. It wasn’t fair.”

The clock in the tower above Storybrooke’s library rings twice a year, both times on Halloween. Belle’s wristwatch chimes merrily, announcing the hour’s change, a half-moment before the bell in the tower starts to ring.

_Clang._

“I could have said no,” Belle calls to Leroy.  

_Clang._

“Remember: no one decides my fate except me.”

_Clang._

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Leroy.”

_Clang._

“Give Astrid my love.”

_Clang._

Belle shuts the door and turns the deadbolt, sealing herself inside. Leroy turns before the clock strikes six.

_Clang._

Then, silence. Belle presses a palm to her chest to feel her frantic heartbeat. Her nerves hum and whine. She wants to run, and instead she forces herself to take several calming breaths.

When she feels steadier, she moves directly to the antique elevator behind the information desk. Belle pushes the doors open, steps inside, and pulls the lever that will lower her to the basement. When the elevator reaches its destination, Belle shivers and pulls her cardigan more tightly around her body and steps into the Dark One’s cave (called a basement by most of Storybrooke’s residents to avoid invoking the Dark One’s name more than necessary).

The air hums and whines around the gaping black hole in the far corner of the cave. Belle waits, not daring to breath, as a hissing groan rises from that empty, unfathomable space. A hand appears first, scaled and roughly hewn, gripping the edge of the pit. Another hand emerges from the dark, and then the crown of a head, and then a creature in the shape of a man pushes itself upwards, launching himself onto the floor of the cave.

He rises gracefully, stretching his naked, sinuous body. He offers Belle a wicked, wicked grin.

“Hello, wife.”

The Dark One has arrived.

* * *

_The children of Storybrooke knew the Dark One better than their own nightmares. But Belle, the wee daughter of an Australian florist and his eccentric British wife, did not count as one of Storybrooke’s children._

_So her peers taught her._

_Ashley Banks left trinkets at the edge of the forest, and at recess should would twirl about them in circles, chanting to the Dark One, begging him for her breasts to grow, for her period to come._

_“She shouldn’t do that,” Emma whispered._

_“Why not?” Belle asked._

_“Because everyone knows the Dark One’s hole is underneath the library,” Ruby answered anxiously. “He grants wishes.”_

_“Like a fairy godmother?” The idea charmed Belle: a spritely benefactor of Storybrooke’s youngest._

_“The Dark One is nothing like a fairy,” Emma growled, surprising Belle with her emphatic reply. “He’s a demon. And he doesn’t want her charm bracelet. The Dark One takes people’s souls as payment, and no pair of boobs is worth that.”_

_As it turned out, Ashley’s breasts did begin to grow that year. She was the first girl in their class to get her period. No one ever took the baubles she left, and as vapid as Belle found her, she had to admit that Ashley did have a soul. So she mostly forgot about the Dark One (like so many before her) until she needed him during the Desperate Summer._

* * *

“Rumplestiltskin.” Belle has not spoken his name for a year, since she bid him goodbye last October. Saying his name: it awakens powerful feelings in her which she kept locked away for the past  “Rumple.”

Her husband continues to consider her. He cocks his head to the left, and she can tells he appreciates the new way that she styles her hair: brushed over to one side, so her chestnut curls cascade down her right cheek like a waterfall. Again, Belle forces herself not to run. It takes every ounce of self-control she has, but her husband reacts violently to sudden movements.

These first moments matter so much, and Belle learns each year how to better manage them.

“Rumple,” she says again, “I’ve missed you so much.”

And her husband’s face crumples. She cannot help herself: Belle rushes forward, and when he holds his arms open for her, she wants to crow her victory to the entire town. Belle means only to comfort him, to hold him and stroke the ridged plates that rise from his back, to twin her fingers through his thick, mossy hair. But as soon as her encircles her with his arms, Rumple crushes his lips to hers, and Belle allows herself to free fall into her love him.

* * *

_Michael Tillman’s wife died. He came home and, in his grief, lead his children deep into the woods outside of Storybrooke. He told them to wait for him in a clearing, and as soon as he had moved out of earshot, he ran all the way home. Thank goodness he burned his children’s pictures, their toys, their clothes, in a giant bonfire on his front lawn. Ava and Nicholas went to live with Dory Tiller’s mother._

_A week after their departure, as a full, ripe summer moon hung over Storybrooke, Anita Lucas ran naked into her backyard. Anita came from Boston, and her neighbors expected certain eccentricities from her, but when she fell on her back and began to convulse, her screams brought people running. They found Anita crouched on all fours, slavering wildly and snarling at anyone who came too near._

_When the sheriff came to investigate, Anita threw herself at his throat, determined to rip into his flesh. Only the lightening-fast reflexes of deputy Graham Humbert saved the other man’s life. When the full moon waned (or the drugs kicked in, depending on who one asked) she whispered that she now belonged to the moon and the wolves._

_Dory Tillman’s mother tried to lock her grandson in her oven and turn the heat setting to broil. Mike Spencer melted his wife’s gold into a shimmering liquid and gilded his hands. Stepmothers turned upon their husbands’ pretty daughters; people suffering from the same malady as Anita stalked the forest at night._

_Belle’s father believed a demon possessed his daughter. He dragged her to their family’s church and begged the bewildered priest to flay her sinner’s hyde and cleanse her of her wickedness. Madness descended upon the town, and yet no one felt empowered to leave. The town’s boundaries became a terrifying no man’s land. No person knew peace._

_After her father’s betrayal, Belle spent most of her time at the library. She stumbled upon the tome by accident: old Mrs. Hubbard had shelved it incorrectly so that when Belle went searching for Jane Eyre, she discover A History of Storybrooke: The Diary of Sarah Fischer. She recalled the name from a long ago history lesson: Sarah Fisher, who came to Storybrooke with her sisters in the 1870s, the eldest daughter of one of the founding families._

_She opened the book to the first page._

 

>       April 15, 1870
> 
> The men will dig through the night, and in the morning, if they have made a whole deep enough that it might hold a demon, we will bury our Darkness and be gladly rid of It.
> 
>  

_A thrill ran through Belle. It made no sense to her that Sarah Fisher’s diary would be turned into a historical text if she spoke so plainly about demons. But it reminded her of Ashley Banks, dancing at the edge of the forest, and the tight expressions her friends wore as they watched her._

_The Dark One. A demon. A collector of souls, a man who bestowed gifts with unspeakable strings attached._

_Belle thought of Storybrooke. At night, husbands dug deep pits in a daze. Come morning, they could remembered nothing of their previous intent and walked away with the insidious hunch that the whole had been made to hold a body. Mothers dreamt of snow stained crimson and of girls who slithered from the depths of the sea and whose feet screamed in agony whenever they took a step. Young girls danced themselves into exhaustion in forest glens, and young men had taken to climbing buildings and lampposts and anything high enough to reach the clouds. They sought their fortunes in the sky or thought they would fly if only they crowed loudly enough._

_None of the stories ended well. Storybrooke would tear itself apart if someone did not break this desperate madness._

_Belle read another page of Sarah Fisher’s diary._

 

>           August 13, 1874
> 
> Gerda told me tonight that she owes her child to It. She begged me not to tell Aaron that she crept to the hole and offered It the name that she would bestow upon a babe, if only she could conceive one. I wonder that Aaron does not know: he must suspect, after four years of barrenness. Gerda wept when she told me how It told she would have her Elsa and bid her not to forget It, for It grows lonely in its pit. I fear what hidden costs, as yet untold, my niece might bear.
> 
>  

_Belle looked to the elevator. Mrs. Hubbard would throw a fit if she caught someone creeping down to the basement. But the fluttering in Belle’s stomach told her to be brave, that she might yet play the heroine and save her town. After the violences the summer had wrought so far, a demon, lurking in a prison of a hole, seemed perfectly normal._

* * *

Rumplestiltskin melts when Belle rubs the spikes that jut from his shoulders and when her fingers tangle in his hair. He kisses her fiercely, and she tastes his tears, licks them from his rough skin.

_Clang._

The bell above the library rings as the Belle beneath it comes apart in her husband’s arms.

_Clang._

She whispers to him about how much she has missed him and how cold her bed has been.

_Clang._

Rumple tells Belle he would never stop kissing her mouth except – except, he must taste her nipples and lick the undersides of her breasts and then he absolutely needs to bury his face beneath her thighs.

_Clang._

For three-hundred-sixty-four days a year, Belle manages to suppress her jealousy of couples who have time on their sides: Emma and Graham, Archie and Ruby, Leroy and Astrid, Mulan and Marian. They never feel the painful urgency that she does when she reunites with Rumple, because they have sunlight afternoons and cool, quiet evenings and the bustling hum of busy mornings.

_Clang._

Rumple brushes at Belle’s nipples through her thin cotton blouse, and she shoves aside her bitterness. Anger has no place between them, not when every moment counts.

_Clang._

She whines when his rigid cock brushes against her thigh. “Off,” Belle groans, and Rumples knows she means her clothes and not him.

_Clang._

Belle cries out wantonly when Rumple finally touches her bare breasts. Her suckles upon one of her rosy peaks before moving to the next. His hands dip into her lacy underwear, which she put on the enhance the affect of him taking them off, and Rumple gasps when he feels how wet she is for him.

_Clang._

Rumple rolls onto his back and Belle straddles him lithely. They moan in tandem as she sinks onto his cock.

“My darling Belle,” Rumple coos, “how I have missed my darling wee dearie.”

Belle strokes his cheek, because even after nine years of marriage, she knows he worries about the texture of his skin. They tangle together and pretend that when dawn comes, he will be allowed to stay.

* * *

_The townsfolk accepted the Dark One’s appearance readily.  
_

_Belle found that coaxing him from the depths of his lair took surprisingly little effort. He would not clothe himself like a man, for he claimed he was no such thing. Belle disagreed with him on that point: she kept her eyes averted specifically because of what dangled between his legs and made him potently male in her mind._

_What drew the denizens of Storybrooke up short was not the presence of a malevolent nor the realization that their forefathers had brought an element akin to magic with them when they established the town. They would gladly have accepted help from this naked, scaled, sharp-toothed creature – except the price he required was too high._

_He wanted on of their daughters for his wife._

_“I grow lonely in my pit, and I would dearly love a woman’s company,” the Dark One crooned. “I can break the curse that besets your town, but that will require magic, and all magic comes with a price.” He trilled excitedly. “So pay up or allow me to return to my pit.”_

_No one, not even the parents who imagined locking their daughters in towers or tying them to rocks as an atonement for their vanity, would offer up their own child. Let the town burn if it required them to be parted with the one they loved._

_“I’ll go with you,” Belle offered. “I’ll be your wife.”_

_Her father rotted in a cell in the police station, awaiting his punishment for trying to cleanse Belle of her mortal sins. Ruby and Emma cried out in protest, and Granny Lucas looked murderous at the thought of Belle becoming the Dark One’s bride. But otherwise, the townsfolk, gathered at City Hall, remained disconcertingly quiet._

_Let this strange girl, this outsider who does not truly come from Storybrooke, bear this unbearable debt._

_The Dark One clapped merrily, and his flaccid penis swayed between his legs, and Belle wondered whether that would be included in her list of wifely duties._

_“It’s forever, dearie,” the Dark One sang._

_“Belle, don’t!” cried Ruby. “Please, Belle, no!” protested Emma._

_“We’re done here,” declared Mayor Mills._

_“You will save my people, then?” Belle asked._

_“Oh, yes, indeed,” giggled the Dark One._

_“Then I will go with you. Forever.”_

* * *

Belle lays in Rumplestiltskin’s arms. They have made love and talked and cried. Now they hold each other and try to stave off the despair that engulfs them whenever All Hallows Eve slips into November.

She would have staid with him, forever, except that she fell in love with him, and he with her. The circumstances were not so unusual: two lonely souls considered one another, and each saw in the other and safe haven and a home. Their love bloomed quickly, and so did their passion, and for almost a week they reveled in the sweet surprise of a successful arranged marriage.

And then Rumplestiltskin felt the magic that governed his movements begin to tug at him.

“I must leave you soon,” he told Belle, cradling her close, “and not of my own free will. All magic comes with a price. And a willing sacrifice is not a sacrifice enough, to cover the cost of breaking the curse.”

Belle wept. “So, I’ll never see you again?” she asked.

“You will,” Rumplestiltskin murmured, “but very rarely, and never for longer than a handful of hours.”

He paused. “We are not married,” he said, “at least not by the laws of your land. You could take another husband. A woman as…” And there he faltered, for he could not finds adequate words, in the great many languages he knew, to express the depth of the wonder he felt when he beheld her. “I do not want you to live a lonely life on my account.”

Belle remembers now, almost a decade later, how she hissed at him when he suggested she take another man to bed. “I’ll never stop fighting for you,” she swore. “I will never stop being your wife.”

She cannot bear to speak of Rumple to her friends. Sometimes, during his long absence, she can barely manage to think of him. Belle could lose herself in missing him, and neither of them want that for her. So she remains quiet, and whenever she returns from her husband’s annual visit, she seems even sadder than the year before.

So her loved ones make inferences. Ruby and Emma might guess at the true state of Belle’s marriage, but they know she will speak to them in her own time, if ever.

“I could never return with you, to where you go the rest of the year.”

“No.”

“It would destroy the town.”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes, I wish…”

“I know. So do I.” Rumple chuckles. “But you wouldn’t be my Belle, if you chose to return with me.”

She snuggles closer to him. He stiffens against her thigh. They make love again and do their best to ignore the chiming of the clock overhead as it reminds them their time together will expire soon.

* * *

Belle’s friends wait for her in front of the library. Ruby glows, eight months pregnant, and looks guilty for shining on such a difficult morning for Belle. Leroy has coffee, Astrid brought doughnuts, and Emma wants to take Belle to Boston for a girls’ weekend.

Her friends’ love and laughter washes over Belle but not loudly enough to drown out the memory of her husband whispering in her ear.  

**Author's Note:**

> I so enjoyed participating in the first (hopefully annual) Rumbelle Revelry. I based this story off of the prompt 'clock chimes.' I have plans to rewrite or remix this story and figure out how these two might have a happy ending!


End file.
